Archive for January, 2008

Adsense New Pin Details

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

Got a big scare today with Google Adsense. Logged into my account And i saw this pink box saying “Your payments are currently on hold. Action is required to release payment. “.

With all the posts in webmaster forums i see of accounts banned, i didnt even read the notice properly and thought my account was banned.

After reading the more details part, i found out its on hold till i enter my pin number. But i only have $30 in it and they usually send it when you reach $50. That got me thinking some more.

So, off to read Google Adsense TOS again. Guess what i find?

This is from the Google Adsense site: ( link below )
When will I receive my PIN?

Once your account balance reaches $10, your Personal Identification Number (PIN) will be generated and sent via first class mail within 3-5 days. You can view the date it is generated by clicking the Please enter your PIN link on your Payment History page. After your PIN is mailed, you should expect it to arrive within 2-4 weeks, but it may take longer to reach you depending on the postal service in your location.

WOW! Google Adsense has changed the amount when you receive your pin.

Check it out here.

SEOnoobs.com

Tuesday, January 29th, 2008

Today i was lurking one of the many webmaster forums, and came across this contest. This would have to be one of the ” now thats different ” contests out there.

If i may quote the original SEOnoobs.com website:

SEOnoobs.com is hosting a SEO contest?

Glad you asked! Basically, at 8pm Central time on February 4th (Monday night), a post will go up here on SEONoobs.Com announcing a keyword or keyphrase that returns ZERO search results. The point of the contest is to build a brand spankin’ new site, and at 8pm Central on March 4th, whoever’s site/blog ranks highest for the said keyword/keyphrase, wins all sorts of fabulous stuff, including a grand prize package worth over $700! (maybe more, who knows!)

I know a lot of folks that visit this blog are pretty new to SEO, so I figured, why not put some of their newly gained SEO knowledge right to work! Not only will you prove to yourself that you can properly SEO a website or blog, but you’ll also have something to stick on your Resume (haha!), not to mention MASSIVE bragging rights, and you’ll walk away with some awesome prizes”

Here is the link to the latest update.

Now! Didn’t i tell you it was “different”

So what are you waiting for, all you SEO gurus out there.

” Go For It “

Google Lego Logo

Monday, January 28th, 2008

Now that title is a mouth full.

It always amazes me when a special event is happening Google.com seems to find a nice little design for their search page.

This week marks the 50th anniversary of Lego brick. When i went to search Google.com.au for some info look what i found.

Ahh all those hours spent building a lego project just to find the dog has chewed the last piece.

i thnik it looks pretty cool.

 

lego

 

 

Entrecard.com Review

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

With this blog being only 3 weeks old, we needed a way to market our new site to attract visitors. When searching Google, we found numerous sites telling us to either submit the site to 100’s of directories or buy some rip off software.

Then we found Entrecard.com.

Perfect, just what we were looking for, and the best part, it is FREE and it WORKS.

As we have been using Entrecard.com for two weeks, i wont go into to much detail here on the way Entrecard works, as there are a few good posts already written explaing everything you need to know about how it works. There are also many blogs written about how you can ‘drop’ 100’s of cards on other sites quickly, if you just want to earn credits.

Honestly, thats not what we are after or what Entrecard is about. According to their website, here is the main idea, ” Entrecard is an easy way to network with other blog owners. Get to know your dedicated readers and favourite writers. Let your Entrecard introduce you . Turn your blog sidebar into valuable advertising space. Launch free, targetted graphic advertising campaigns. Its your internet business card”.

Please when you visit a site, take a little time reading some of the posts. Entrecard.com has some very popular blogs with a lot of interesting posts on many different subjects. If you see a post you like please leave a comment, it only takes a few minutes. We also think leaving a recommendation for a blog is a good way of meeting new contacts.

entrecard

Entrecard.com also has a very good forum, where you can exchange tips and advice about using Enntrecard, The forum also allows you to introduce yourself and your blog and even has a section so you can let people know about promotions and events on your blogs.

Have you ever thought about having your advert on johnchow.com? We have and Entrecard is the only way we might ever achieve this. So why not head on over and check out Entrecard.com.

Caricature Studio 3.0 Review

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

While searching the internet one day, we came across, what looked like a very funny program. Caricature Studio 3.0 software creates caricatures, parady magazine covers and more from photos. The price of $19.95 sound very reasonable.

Caricature Studio 3.0 is the only software designed specifically for caricature art! Now Anyone can create caricatures, just like amusement park artists! Open any photo and create endless caricature variations using the special imaging tools and filters. Includes comic-style rendering for a “hand drawn” look. Add funny clip art images such as hats, talk bubbles and text. Check out all of the fun projects you can create in minutes!

Some of the caricature projects you can create are posters, old west wanted posters, parody magazine covers and even create custom comics. Amaze friends and co-workers with your new talent to create hilarious caricatures in minutes! Whether for personal or business use, your caricatures are sure to be a hit.

funny

Click Here!

Caricature Studio 3.0 is packaged with a comprehensive set of image tools and filters. These tools provide endless possibilities. Even Photoshop plugin support mean 1000’s of additional filters are available.

Some features of Caricature Studio 3.0 are: Three great image manipulation effects to pull, twist, shrink, drag and expand facial features in endless combinations. Comic and cartoon rendering filters to stylize your caricature. Photoshop plugin support.

Diggitlive.com Review

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

The problem?

How to drive traffic to our newly created blog.

The Answer: www.diggitlive.com

With our blog only just started, we needed sound advice on how to get consistent traffic to our site. One day while searching the net we came across Diggitlive.

The post on how to get traffic from StumpleUpon is what attracted us to this site. The article was very well presented and has easy to follow steps . The tips on how to add feedburner feedflares to your feed is another handy piece of advice.

Diggitlive.com is a very informative site and is very welled laid out with easy navigation. The articles are well written and include topics such as SEO, internet marketing and other useful information. One thing we found in its favour is that the ads blend in well and the visitor is not overcome by adverts.

diggitlive

Website Design Mistakes

Friday, January 25th, 2008

Common mistakes to avoid when using web templates

Website templates are very affordable and they save you a lot of effort and time when you want to create a new layout for your website. However, a lot of people make mistakes in the process of choosing and using a web template and end up with something that was unlike the image they had in mind. Here are some guidelines to help you avoid those mistakes.

The first obvious mistake you should be aware of is using a template that is very popular. If many people use the same template, your website will not appear unique at all and your credibility as a solid, different website will be tarnished. In other words, you will appear generic just like your next-door neighbours.

To whole point of using a web template is to save time and effort. You just change the title and appropriate details and you’re done. The biggest mistake one makes is to customize the template beyond recognition. While that may be good in the sense that you’re creating a unique graphic, you’re defying the very purpose of using a web template — saving time and effort.

However, on the opposite side, if a template you purchase is suitable but some changes must be made to suit your site’s theme, then you will have to take some time to make the changes. For example, you can find a very nice template that suits your hobby site except the original designer has put an image of stamps in the header. You can find images of garden plants and spades to replace the stamps for your gardening hobby site. However, do only make the necessary changes and don’t redesign the whole template.

In some circumstances, some people simply make the wrong choice of templates. This is a very subjective issue but you have to be careful in selecting templates to suit your audience. Do not choose templates just because they are pretty, choose them because they serve your purpose.

SEO H1 Tags

Friday, January 25th, 2008

This SEO tip moved my website 300 places on google.com.au

Some search engines will give words found in the “H1″ tag a boost in relevancy. The H1 tag is used to specify page or topic headings. The problem with the tag is that it’s often too big and ugly to use very much. In most browsers H1 is an oversized font that often looks out of place on a page.
The good news is that there is a clever way you can get the best of both worlds by using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). With CSS, you can specify that the browser display the H1 tag or other tags on your page anyway you please. This is great since you can get both a boost in relevancy and get better control of your page’s appearance in one easy step. How?
In the <HEAD> area of the page, put the following STYLE lines:

<STYLE TYPE=”text/css”>
H1 {font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: black}
</STYLE>

The above will force all H1 tags on the page to use a 12 pt Arial or Helvetica font in black text. You can adjust the point size or font to whatever values look best on your page. By using this CSS tag, you are free to use the H1 tag on ALL your pages to gain extra relevancy WITHOUT sacrificing the look of your pages. Since many engines give more weight to keywords that appear within H1 heading tags versus the regular body text, this is one tip you’ll definitely want to implement today!
or

H1 {
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 12pt;
color: #000000;
background-color: #ffffff;
}

or

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
color: #000000;
font-size : 12px;text-decoration: none; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;}

Basic Website Design

Friday, January 25th, 2008

This is an important question i think you need to answer if you want to make money online and before designing your site,

Who Is Your Audience?

Understanding the type of people who visit your website is a very important task because you can use that information to enhance your site to suit them. As a result, you will gain more loyal returning visitors that come back again and again for more.

What is the age level and what kind of knowledge does your audience have? A beginner might linger around a general site on gardening, but a professional gardener might turn their nose up at the very same site. Similarly, a regular person might leave a site filled with affiliate products but a well educated money maker will find that site interesting.

Take your audience’s emotional state into consideration when building your site. If a very irritated visitor searches for a solution and comes across your site, you will want to make sure you offer the solution right up front and sell or promote your product to them second. In this way, the visitor will put their trust in you for offering the solution to their problems and is more likely to buy your product when you offer it to them after that.

When you design the layout for your site, you have to take into account the characteristics of your audience. Are they old or young people? Are they looking for trends or are they just looking for information served without any icing on the cake? For example, introducing a new, exciting game with a simple, straightforward black text against white background page will definitely turn prospects away. Make sure your design suits your site’s general theme.

Try to sprinkle colloquial language in your sites sparingly where you see fit and you will create a sense that your audience is on common ground with you. This in turn builds a trusting relationship between you and your audience, which will come in useful should you want to market a product to your audience.

I hope you find this basic website design tip useful. Another good tip is to check out the sites on google.com’s first few pages and copy what they are doing, THEN do it better.

Making money online with Adsense

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008

 I would like to know how to make money online with Adsense, will it help me to buy Google Adsense e-books and reports?

As with any money-making venture, there are pitfalls, pros and cons and some outright cons. As popular as Google Adsense has become, it’s no surprise there is a wealth of information for sale.

The fact is Google Adsense will tell you everything you need to know – for free. They have a support site that covers virtually everything you would need to know about the program and experience will teach you the rest, There are a lot of people online who will gladly answer your questions for free and there are many forums where you can post questions. You can even email the Google Adsense Support Staff if you have questions that their Support Site doesn’t answer.

Experience will probably be your best teacher anyway. And the good news is the Google Adsense program makes that experience painless in that you have nothing lose. So just take a chance on yourself for now. Learn everything you can to maximize your earning potential. But i shall reveal what i think is the best Google Adsense tip out there and the end of this post. (more…)